BACKWARDS IN HIGH HEELS - The Impossible Art of Being Female, by Tania Kindersley and Sarah Vine, covered everything from moral relativism to motherhood, feminism to face cream. This blog started as an extension of the book.
It has evolved into a personal blog by Tania Kindersley, featuring food, horses, dogs, politics, daily life, random musings, an awful lot of human condition, and occasional moments of whimsy.

Sunday, 24 February 2013

Sunday

A rather busy Sunday, in the end. So busy that now it is almost six and there is little brain left for the blog. I am hock deep in logistics and domestic activity. I go away next week, and dog-sitters will be arriving for Stanley. I cannot bear to send him to kennels, because of him having been abandoned twice, and I feel it might set up acid flashbacks in his poor mind. So now I look at the house and think everything must be organised, so the sitters do not feel as if they have come upon the place of a slattern. I am even eyeing the Cupboard of Doom, just in case they might open it by mistake and get a horrid shock.

The sweetest moment was working with Red. We did all kinds of groundwork. We went out into the wider field, beating the bounds, encountering new and sometimes faintly alarming objects. We did controlled circles, standing, stopping on command, and then some lovely liberty work, where she follows me without a rope. She was calm and good and responsive.

All the time I was working though, I felt a spark in her, some banked fire. When I finished, I thought she might go off and do some bronco tricks, but she just ambled off. Then, as I turned away, I heard a sound, and there was my duchess, heels in the air, doing her best slo-mo Spanish Riding School of Vienna trick. No matter how many times I see it, it never fails to make me laugh. It really is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

Then she stopped, and stood very still, and gave me her dear old donkey, shucks Ma, it was nuthin’ face.

She made me happy and she made me laugh and she gave me a sense of achievement. That’s pretty good for one Scottish Sunday.

5 comments:

Ah! The Cupboard of Doom! My husband has promised to build extra shelves in ours so I can whip its contents into shape. Until then, and when it will be is a temporal concept known only to him, I think chains and padlocks would be in order if we had a dog-sitter.

Big love to Stanley that he won't pine and fret much, if at all. I bet you ring up and talk to him on the phone. My daughter did when we dog-sat their Spaniel for a w/e. He too is a rescue.

Next month cats will be going to a five-star cat "hotel" (run by a lovely man who is truly a cat whisperer). Now that they're three, costs will be almost as much as my plane ticket (even with a group discount!)! Would LOVE to find a live-in cat sitter. Tiny house is full of nooks & crannies of doom (never mind a single cupboard) AND husband isn't keen on someone staying here...Have an excellent trip!

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The Book

Click on the picture to get to our Amazon listing. Backwards in High Heels is available in paperback for the most excellent price of £6.99. And that's quite enough vulgar self-promotion.

About Us

Tania Kindersley is a writer living in North-East Scotland with one big black dog. Sarah Vine is a writer and journalist living in North-West London with one husband, two children and one small brown dog.

Together, we wrote Backwards in High Heels - The Impossible Art of Being Female, which inspired us to start this blog.

Housekeeping note

I love your comments and read them all. At the beginning of this enterprise, I did try to reply to them, but time is now too pressing. If there are direct reader questions, I will generally answer them in the main blog.

I am a great believer in the free exchange of information. If you would like to use text or pictures from this blog, please do so, as long as you make an attribution. A link would also be very much appreciated.

The Duchess - pseudonym for extremely grand dog. She died in 2011, but she is still with us in spirit.The Pigeon - pseudonym for absurdly soft dog.

Red the Mare - chestnut thoroughbred, who arrived in the spring of 2012, and took over the entire blog.

The Young Gentleman - fellow-about-the-place, once afraid of horses, whose sole ambition is now to ride Red the Mare.Virginia the Pig - a Gloucester Old Spot PigThe Compound - where we all live.The Hill - the view of which is photographed each day, for the record.

Guest stars:

The Older Brother.

The Younger Brother.

The Older Niece.

The Man in the Hat, Older Niece's other half.

The Man of Letters - literary mentor.

The Playwright - saver of sanity.

The Beloved Cousin - family in the south.

The Old Fella - husband of the Beloved Cousin. Horseman.

The Political Operative - vital for my political geekery.

The Entrepreneur - an entrepreneur, who wishes I had more submarines in my books.